Gujarat Board GSEB Class 11 English Textbook Solutions Hornbill Poem 1 A Photograph Textbook Exercise Important Questions and Answers, Notes Pdf.
Gujarat Board Textbook Solutions Class 11 English Hornbill Poem 1 A Photograph
GSEB Class 11 English A Photograph Text Book Questions and Answers
Think it Out
Question 1.
What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
Answer:
The word cardboard denotes the photograph pasted on a hard thick paper. This word has been used to refer to a practice in the past when photographs were pasted on cardboard and framed with glass front to preserve them.
Question 2.
What has the camera captured?
Answer:
The camera has captured the three girls -the poet’s mother and her two cousins, Betty and Dolly, in their swimming dresses with the poet’s mother in the middle and the two cousins on either side holding her hands and walking five feet in seawater.
Question 3.
What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?
Answer:
The sea has not changed over the years. Its waves are as fresh, shining and tireless as they were years ago. The changelessness of sea reminds us of the changes in human face with advancing age.
Question 4.
The poetess’s mother laughed at the snapshot? What did this laugh indicate?
Answer:
This laugh indicated her joy at remembering an incident connected with her past life when she was quite young and free from the tensions and worries of life.
Question 5.
What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss”?
Answer:
The sea holiday and the laughter of the poet’s mother are incidents of the past. There is a sense of loss associated with them. Both are amusing yet disappointing as the state of feeling comfortable or relaxed is unnatural or forced one,. This sense of loss is quite painful to bear.
Question 6.
What does ‘this circumstance’ refer to?
Answer:
This circumstance refers to the death of the poet’s mother.
Question 7.
The three stanzas depict three different phases. Name them.
Answer:
- The girlhood of the poet’s mother – the period before the birth of the poet.
- Her middle-age – the period during the childhood of the poet.
- Period after the death of the poet’s mother.
GSEB Class 11 English A Photograph Additional Important Questions and Answers
Answer the following questions in three to Jour sentences each:
Question 1.
Which incident has been captured in the snapshot?
Answer:
The incident depicts three girls who had gone for a swim in the sea and were standing still for a short time smiling at the camera. This group photo captures their joy, buoyant spirits and freedom of girlhood.
Question 2.
What do you learn about the poetess’s mother from the photograph?
Answer:
The poetess’s mother was a big girl even at the age of twelve. She had a sweet face and enjoyed swimming as well as wading in the sea-water with her cousins. Years later she laughed at the clothes they had put on for the sea holiday.
Question 3.
How did the three girls face the camera?
Answer:
They removed hair from their face and stood smiling in the shallow water near the beach. Betty and Dolly stood on either side of the poetess’s mother, holding one of her hands.
Question 4.
What do you think, made the poetess’s mother laugh?
Answer:
The dress and behaviour of her cousins Betty and Dolly made the poetess’s mother laugh. It is evident that they had put on some quaint dress, which amused her.
Question 5.
The poetess’s mother laughs at her past. How does the poet react to her past?
Answer:
The sea holiday was a past experience for the poetess’s mother. A glimpse of the photograph perhaps revived some feelings of shared joy and she laughed. For the poet, her laughter is an incident of the past. It is amusing in ironic manner. The sense of loss overcomes the pleasure.
Question 6.
Why, do you think, does the poetess say nothing about her mother’s death?
Answer:
The poet has no words to express her reaction to this solemn and painful incident. Death silences everyone. The extensive quietness and prevailing gloom silence her.
Question 7.
What impression do you form of the poetess and the poetess’s mother after reading the poem ‘A Photograph’?
Answer:
The poem presents the poet as a sensitive person who is quite affectionate towards her mother and Is deeply attached to her. She loves her ‘sweet face and notes the changes In It as she advances In age. She remembers all the Incidents connected with her life Including her laughter on looking at the photograph. She finds it hard to bear her death. The pangs of separation Stun her to speechlessness.
She has a friendly temperament and free mixing nature. She has great affection or her two girl cousins and goes with them for a sea holiday where they put on quaint dresses. lier laughter on seeing the dresses In the snap shows her fine temperament and good humour.
Figures of Speech
Select the correct figures of speech from the options given below:
Question 1.
‘The cardboard shows me how it was’
A. Personification
B. Metaphor
C. Oxymoron
D. Alliteration
Answer:
B. Metaphor
Question 2.
‘All three stood still to smile through their hair’
A. Repetition
B. Metaphor
C. Alliteration
D. Antithesis
Answer:
C. Alliteration
Question 3.
‘And the sea, which appears to have changed less’
A. Personification
B. Repetition
C. internal Rhyme
D. Simile
Answer:
A. Personification
Question 4.
‘Washed their terribly transient feet’
A. Metaphor
B. Alliteration
C. Synecdoche
D. Metonymy
Answer:
B. Alliteration
Question 5.
‘With the laboured ease of loss’
A. Metaphor
B. Personification
C. Metonymy
D. Oxymoron
Answer:
D. Oxymoron
Question 6.
‘There is nothing to say at all’
A. Alliteration
B. Antithesis
C. Litotes
D. Repetition
Answer:
C. Litotes
Reading Comprehension (Textual)
Read the following verse (stanzas) and answer the questions given below them:
Question 1.
The cardboard shows me how it was When the two girl cousins went paddling, Each one holding one of my mother’s hands, And she the big girl-some twelve years or so.
Questions:
1. What does the cardboard refer to?
2. Who was the big girl and how old was she?
Answer:
1. The cardboard refers to the childhood photograph of her mother.
2. The big girl was the poet’s mother. She was then twelve years old.
Question 2.
All three stood still to smile through their hair At the uncle with the camera, A sweet face, My mother’s, that was before I was born. And the sea, which appears to have changed less, Washed their terribly transient feet.
Questions:
1. Who does ‘all three’ refer to here?
2. Why did they smile through their hair?
Answer:
1. Here ‘all three’ refers to the poet’s mother and her two cousins.
2. They smiled through their hair because they were posing for a photograph.
Question 3.
Some twenty-thirty years later, She’d laugh at the snapshot. “See Betty And Dolly,” she’d say, “and look how they Dressed us for the beach.”
Questions:
1. Who would laugh at the snapshot twenty-thirty years later?
2. How did mother remember her past?
Answer:
1. The poet’s mother would laugh at the snapshot some twenty-thirty years later.
2. Mother remembered her past becoming nostalgic.
Question 4.
…………………….. The sea holiday Was her past, mine is her laughter. Both wry With the laboured ease of loss.
Questions:
1. Who went for the sea holiday in the past ?
2. What does ‘both’ refer to?
Answer:
1. The poet’s mother had gone for the sea holiday in the past when she was a young girl.
2. Both refers to the poet’s mother remembering her past sea holiday as well as the poet remembering her mother’s laughter.
Question 5.
Now she’s has been dead nearly as many years As that girl lived. And of this circumstance There is nothing to say at all, Its silence silences.
Questions:
1. When did the poet’s mother die?
2. Explain: ‘As the girl lived’.
Answer:
1. It took many years since the poet’s mother has died.
2. The words ‘As the girl lived’ suggest that the poet is completely absorbed in the memories of her mother.
A Photograph Summary in English
A Photograph Introduction:
Shirley Toulson was born on 20 May 1924 in Henley-on-Thames, England. She was the daughter of Douglas Horsfall Dixon and Marjorie Brown. She had a great passion for creative writing. She was influenced by her father, who was also a great writer. In 1953, she was conferred BA degree in literature. She was greatly influenced by Celtic Christianity. Her books Celtic AlternatIve’ (1987) and Celtic year (1993)’ made her famous.
In the poem ‘A Photograph’, she depicts her mother, as a child, with her two cousins standing on a beach with her mother (Poet’s grandmother). Her uncle had taken the photograph.
A Photograph Summary:
The poem is divided into three stages. In the first stage the poet’s mother is standing at the beach, enjoying her holiday with her two girl cousins. She was twelve years old. In the second stage, about 20-30 years later the poet describes her mother laughing at her two cousins dressed up for the beach holiday. In the third stage the poet remembers her mother with a heavy heart. Here the nostalgic feelings of the poet are revived.
In the first stage the poet is looking at her mother’s photograph. The poet and her two girl cousins are seen standing on the beach. The two cousins are holding her hands. At this time the poet is just twelve years old. All the three girls were smiling. Their hair had fallen on their face as the breeze had blown them over. They were smiling at their uncle who was clicking their photo. The sea was washing their transient feet. But now as the poet recalls the past she realizes that the sea has changed a Little and those whose feet were being washed have undergone a great change.
In the second stage the poet talks about the present. After twenty or thirty years. when the photograph had been snapped the mother looks at the photograph again only to realize that time has changed everything. She must be In her thirties or forties, she Laughs and points out the dress which the girls were wearing. The manner In which they were dressed for the beach.
She now becomes nostalgic. She then consoles herself and feels that this was the thing of the past. The sweet Joys of her childhood days are no more. Things have now changed. The poet remembers the laughter of her mother. Fier mother Is no more. But her laughter lingers on. Though the sea holiday belongs to the past what belongs to her in the present time are the sweet memories was greatly influenced by Celtic Christianity. Her books ‘Celtic Alternative’ (1987) and ‘Celtic year (1993)’ made her famous.
In the poem ‘A Photograph’, she depicts her mother, as a child, with her two cousins standing on a beach with her mother (Poet’s grandmother). Her uncle had taken the photograph.
that the sea has changed a little and those whose feet were being washed have undergone a great change.
In the second stage the poet talks about the present. After twenty or thirty years, when the photograph had been snapped the mother looks at the photograph again only to realize that time has changed everything.
She must be in her thirties or forties, she laughs and points out the dress which the girls were wearing. The manner in which they were dressed for the beach. She now becomes nostalgic. She then consoles herself and feels that this was the thing of the past. The sweet joys of her childhood days are no more.
Things have now changed. The poet remembers the laughter of her mother. Her mother is no more. But her laughter lingers on. Though the sea holiday belongs to the past what belongs to her in the present time are the sweet memories In the third stage the poet misses her mother now that she is no more. She is surrounded with nothing but emptiness. The silence of the situation has silenced her.